St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-06-25
HOW ARDS LETTER.
THE GREAT DESERT OF DESPAIR
THAT LIES IN NEW YORK.

! THAT LIES IN NEW YORK.
Summer Pleasures and Privations-What
Hot Weather Means to the Poor and
Forlorn-The Bitter Problem of Evil
Presented in its Most Forbidding Aspect
People who see New York in the glare
of the MONDAY sun have very superb
cial acquaintance with its lower life
By lower life do not refer to the pala-
tial gaming houses where suppers are
provided for men who play and specta-
tors who don't, costing all the way from
$40 to $25 plate, with wine ad G6stum,
nor to other houses of gilded infamy,
where recklessness of expenditure keeps
pace with extremity of debauchery. Nor
do refer to the haunts of thieves and the
groveling of men and women in the de-
pravity of drunkenness; nor to the much
written about and very little understood
opium joints; nor to that great silent city
which stretches from river to river, and
from the postotfice to the Battery, in
whose vaults are hundreds of millions of
dollars, tenantless save by rats, cats and
watchmen; but would call your atten-
ton for moment to an immense desert
of despair, divided by avenues of wealth
and atf1uence, of comfort and of ease, into
an eastern and western section, over
crowded, overheated, swarming with
poverty, distress, despair, faint with
heat, sick at heart with restitution, poi
soned by malaria, foul with odors from
unprotected sewers, dirty, uncanny, dis
reputable.
Thousands and tens of thousands OF
our fellow-citizens will soon, in dog-days,
rush from their pleasant homes in the
city, every day, to Coney Island, Long
Beach or Long Branch. Their excursion
means a breezy sail down the bay, a
pleasant trip on well-laid railroad, de-
lightful plunge in the tumbling breakers
and jolly dinner of Little Neck clans,
softshell crabs, broiled chickens, cham
payne, Burgundy, coffee and pousse cafe.
After that stroll upon the beach, superb
music, furnished by magnificent band,
fragrant cigar and a refreshing
trip across the bay with its in
MIGRATING change. doubt it is
an over-estimate to say that of
the 10000 or 10000 people who
make daily trips to some one of these
nearby resorts at least 10000 of them
spend from $5 to $40 each. The lower
of these sums represents weeks work
to many men two weeks work to many
boys. These thousands are merchants,
clerks and the better grade of mechanics,
and to them the outlying districts of
penury and distress are as little known
as they are to the millionaire on the ave-
nue. or the preacher in his pulpit.
Now and then a doctor, carried away
by zeal in his profession, chances upon a
patient whom he subsequently visits in
one of these pest houses but, as rule,
the only doctor these poor creatures
know is found in the dispensary or in the
corner drug store. There are houses
here in which there are 100 homes;
houses in which from 400 to 600 people
live; houses divided into rooms fourteen
feet square, in which huddle families of
six and eight, with boarders; houses in
which there are rooms without windows,
to which the sun never penetrates, where
a breath of fresh air would be stranger
and flower an object of intensest Gu
riosity. 1t would require stretch of
imagination beyond the capacity of the
most intelligent reader to conceive of
the huddled-up way in which scores of
thousands of New York's poor pass
their existence.
had occasion once to visit sick man
in one of these houses.
/ found him in a room perhaps twelve
feet square, with little window-two
panes, six inches by four He was lying
on bundle of rags. In the room was
cooking stove; four beds were piled one
upon the other in corner clothes, re-
Gently washed, were hanging upon lines
stretched from end to end. The family,
consisting of a woman and five little
children under the age of seven, were
eating fried parrish, while seated at
table were their three male boarders. l
happened to have rosebud with sprig
of lemon verbena in my buttonhole, and
the amount of whispering and childish
curiosity occasioned by it among the lit
tie folks at the table was both interest
ing and saddening. The combined odors
of the room and the fish nearly turned
my stomach end for end.
have never forgotten it; I believe I
never shall.
1t was new and strange and terrible to
me, but not to them.
II was their "Home, Sweet Home"
1t was where they lived and moved
and had their being 1t was where the
mother sang lullabys to the
where the babies prayed "Dod
bess papa and mama" and where all the
one or the other kind of domestic life
was located and remembered. Nor was it
an exceptionally bad case. On the con-
trary, it was little better than others I
have seen, because, fortunately, there
was nothing there but poverty. Had
there been drunkenness, with its hideous
what tragedies would be prob
able! The sick man didn't last long,
but before he turned to the wall and left
MS children fatherless, he told me how
hard his feeble wife worked, how she
washed clothes by day and sewed by
night, and how her desire to provide him
\ few "luxuries "-such as an occasional
apple, lemon and "bit of medicine.
made her slave herself by the care of
ooarders.